1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an annular body, an annular body stretching device and an image forming apparatus.
2. Related Art
A conventional electrophotographic process used with an image forming apparatus typically includes: forming an electrostatic latent image on an image holder such as an electrophotographic photoreceptor, developing the electrostatic latent image with a toner, electrostatically transferring a thus-obtained toner image to an intermediate transfer belt that is an endless belt (first transfer process), and further transferring the toner image to a transfer receiver medium such as a transfer paper to form an image (secondary transfer process). In a (tandem) image forming apparatus where toner images of a plurality of different colors are superposed to form a full-color image, an intermediate transfer belt has been suitably used and, in particular, an intermediate transfer belt having conductive properties has been in wide use.
In order to stably obtain an excellent output image over a long term, in addition to mechanical strength such as flexibility, bending resistance and tensile rupture strength, electrical characteristics such as surface resistivity and volume resistivity are important for the intermediate transfer belt.